there's a nicely fleshed out list Here which even talks about why MA cults start up.

this one's my favourite.

--Your certificates and papers are marked with obscure and mystical-looking Japanese and/or Chinese characters. When you show it to someone who can read Japanese, they start laughing so hard that snot comes out of their noses.

Not to get off subject, but that list sounds like what I've heard of Mormonism.

I'm not so sure #2 is really an indication of a cult. Actually, it sounds like almost any for-profit business I've ever come across. In comparison to the other points, I think #2 is more an indication of mcdojo than a cult.

#2 is valid because it suggests the cult can replenish it's numbers. For instance, while people talk about the heinous bullshidoness of Ashida Kim, the reality is that he apparently has zero or close to zero students, and that has been the case for years, because he cannot replenish ranks, but John Kim, in his heyday, because of #2 being present, could pack schools, which allowed him to buy multiple properties that served as compounds for a duration where he could use the cultists as free labor to build his mansions, all while evading taxes.

#2 on it's own may not mean much, but combined with #3 and #5(which are really the same point) it is full blown cult, imo

And that's when I figured out that tears couldn't make somebody who was dead alive again. There's another thing to learn about tears, they can't make somebody who doesn't love you any more love you again. It's the same with prayers. I wonder how much of their lives people waste crying and praying to God. If you ask me, the devil makes more sense than God does. I can at least see why people would want him around. It's good to have somebody to blame for the bad stuff they do. Maybe God's there because people get scared of all the bad stuff they do. They figure that God and the Devil are always playing this game of tug-of-war game with them. And they never know which side they're gonna wind up on. I guess that tug-of-war idea explains how sometimes, even when people try to do something good, it still turns out bad.